New Asylum Policy Challenge Lands in Familiar Court

A new court challenge to the Trump administration’s plan to keep asylum-seekers detained until their cases are decided has been filed with the same Seattle federal judge who in April ruled against the administration over speedy bond hearings for refugees, USA Today reports.

The new lawsuit was filed with U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman by the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, the American Immigration Council, and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. The groups are challenging Attorney General William Barr’s directive on April 16 that immigration judges deny bond hearings for asylum seekers, which would keep migrants in detention while they wait months, even years, for their claims to be heard. Barr delayed the start of the new rule until July. The latest legal challenge seeks to block the rule from ever taking effect. On April 4, Judge Pechman ordered the administration to provide bond hearings within seven days, and placed the burden of proof on the Department of Homeland Security, not the asylum seekers, to justify the continued detention.

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